


On Lobster and Muses

by valammar



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, First Impressions, Fishing, Fluff, plus size character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9468050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valammar/pseuds/valammar
Summary: The newcomer on White Willow Farm may just have what Elliott needs to cure his writer's block.





	

_The sun was sinking further below the horizon, forming a sliver of scarlet beneath a bloody haze. Its burning brightness remained his stalwart companion on this lonely desert trek. He moved with the breaking dawn._ _Progression turned it orange, then yellow, then white at its climax, where it would fall back to the opposite horizon in reverse: to the west, white, yellow, orange, red, then finally nothing. Every day, the same. East to west. White to black._  

 _Some days, the sun never came. That's when danger rolled its way in on soaked clouds. Out here, he'd be hard-pressed to find shelter against battering thunder and flashes of blue lightning._  

 _On those days, when his bones were soaked sore and his stomach cried for food, all the wanderer could think of was..._  

"No, no. Too verbose. Much too amateurish. Egregious, even," Elliott bemoaned, plucking the sheet of paper from his lap, compacting it into a ball and tossing it into the ocean. 

"Writer's block?" Willy asked.  

"The most frustrating word combination in the history of language. Yet alas, I find myself at an impasse." 

The man had become his own constant as their daily routines coincided. Elliott penned outlines on the docks while he cast a line at the water's edge. Day in and day out, the two bonded in silence while maintaining their respective crafts. The faithful fisherman and the seaside scribe. 

"Well, what's got you hung up?" 

"While I appreciate the sentiment, Willy, I'm sure you wouldn't really want me to prattle on about my lack of progress." 

"Hey, maybe I can help you with a few ideas. I'm pretty good at reeling things in." 

"Aha! Good one!" 

"What do you mean?" He furled his brow, oblivious.  

 "...Never mind." Elliott sighed, realizing that perhaps verbalizing his thoughts would better illuminate their weak spots. "The tone of the story has become my bane. My main character is a gruff sort, deeply entrenched in this sense of purpose and perseverance, yet he must maintain good humor and humility in the face of bleakness. He comes across as too stoic, too forced." 

"Probably because you _are_ forcing it, " he said, blunt and straightforward. Always his preferred attitude. "A fish won't bite your hook automatically. You have to wait it out until it comes to you." 

Elliott winced. "Waiting is something I literally can't afford to do right now." True, his one room cottage cost little, but funds were still running short—which meant time was, as well. 

Willy curled his mouth in thought. "What's it they say? About how art imitates life?" 

"That _is_ the expression, yes." 

"Sounds like your guy needs to start imitating it." 

"I'm not sure I follow you." 

"Find someone who has what you're looking for and write about them." 

"You mean like a muse?" 

Willy shrugged. "Who gave you the idea to write it in the first place? Start there." 

Succinct again, and exactly what he needed to hear. He'd been so preoccupied in the conventions of his paracosm that he'd abandoned everyday inspiration as a resource. 

In a serendipitous moment, Elliott turned to see the very figure walking toward them: the newcomer from White Willow Farm. The one who he'd approached, on a whim, and asked her to describe her favorite genre. She trudged the sand and onto the dock with a fishing pole slung over her shoulder in a blithesome manner, reminding him briefly of his rifle-toting wanderer wading through the desert.  

 _Mystery_. Yes, a fellow city slicker. A stranger in all but name. They'd spoken in passing, though never at length, though there was something in the way she took on the challenges of rural life with tenacity that enticed him. Having left the concrete towers and corporate treadmill to pursue a life of simplicity and personal passions was a story he knew all too well. When White Willow expanded a little more each day, she'd finished another page of her own living memoir.  

He'd seen her brow drenched in sweat as she carted bushels of fresh produce down to Pierre's, rain or shine. Sunrise or sunset. He'd found her reeling in a modest dinner at the river bend after a long day of crippling labor. He'd strolled past her touting a woodsman's ax and swinging it into a maple tree with the precision and force of a seasoned professional. No one could say Asta Erickson retreated when faced with adversity. _A sense of purpose and perseverance._  

"Good morning, Asta." 

"Morning, Willy," she said in her city lilt—an incongruence, almost. Standing comfortably in her muddy galoshes and overalls, she looked as if she were born with country dirt nestled proudly under her fingernails. She was smaller than from a distance; almost petite. "How's the catch today?" 

"Hoping to land the big one. Fortune Teller said the spirits are on my side today." 

"You watch that show, too?!" She turned to him, flashing a gap-toothed smile and sweetly appled cheeks. "Do you watch it, Elliott?" 

He shook his head. "Television is a devil to a man with a strict deadline. I don't have one." 

"Oh, right. How's your writing going?" 

He huffed, staring at the blank page and pen before him. "I'm afraid my inspiration is vexingly idle for the time being." 

"Writer's block," Willy repeated. Subtlety wasn't his realm. 

"Yes. Thank you." 

"Then on that note...if you're not busy, do you want to help me empty these cages real quick?" She pointed at the crab pots bobbing in the water below.  

"Sure! Which one should I start with?" 

Asta’s nose crinkled in disgust and she pointed at the basket closest to his feet. “That one. I think there’s a lobster in it.” 

He threw his head back in a laugh. Since leaving his cosmopolitan comforts behind, he’d grown quite accustomed to the crustaceans that waddled the shoreline in front of his shack. The hermit crabs especially had been his constant companions. 

“Not fond of them, I take it?” 

She shook her head. “They give me the heebie-jeebies.” 

“ _This_ from the same woman who braves the mines until well past midnight?” 

“Hey, that’s different. Slimes don’t have squirmy little legs.” 

“Ah, but to be a lobster would be to live a life immortal.” 

“You might have lost me there.” She cocked her head. 

“Apologies,” he said. “Lobsters regenerate their cells indefinitely. In theory, they have no natural cause of death. Instead, they merely shed their exoskeleton and grow ever larger.” 

“Forever?” 

“Forever.” 

“...I don’t think that’s true, Elliott.” 

“It might not be, but it made you think of them a little differently, didn’t it?” He reached into the crab pot and pulled the creature out. He— _she—_ had a fighting spirit and flapped her tail wildly under his grip. Asta giggled as it splashed sea water in her face. 

"Maybe. They're still a little gross, though." 

"Oh, what kind of fisher's spirit is that?" Willy gave her a shove toward the lobster in his hand. "Just grab it. Worth a good amount at the market, that one." 

"I'll hold it steady," Elliott said, as a gesture of comfort. 

She reached a tentative hand outward and then hesitated, briefly torn. "All right, I'll touch it." She teetered closer, almost laying a finger on its chitonous hide when it flailed again and she squealed. 

"Heebie-jeebies! _Heebie-jeebies!_ " Asta lurched back and her boot clipped the edge of the dock, sending her plummeting gracelessly off of it.  

"Asta!" He could feel the thrum of his heart as guilt and panic took over. 

"Sorry, Elliott," she said, trying to pull herself out of the water. "Hope I didn't splash your papers."  

 _She's_ _worried_ _about my pages, of all things_.  

"I got this," Willy grumbled. And, with the trained endurance of a seasoned seafarer, he took her by the hands and pulled her back onto the dock in one fluid motion. "I told you I was good at reeling things in." 

"Good one!" Asta laughed, wringing her hair. 

"I still don't know what you kids are on about," he shrugged, indifferent. 

"Well, I think I've made enough of a fool of myself in front of you two for one day. I'm hoping I dry off by the time I get back home." 

"So I take it you won't be peddling this lobster back in town? High price?" He said, waving it in front of his face. 

"A writer needs to eat too, right? That one's on me."  

With that, she nodded a goodbye to them both and she went on her way. 

"She's a bit of an odd duck," Willy said. "Like you." 

Elliott chuckled softly and took one last look at the lobster before sliding her back underneath the capricious waves, and another at the newcomer, having now made her way well up  the shore. 

Just this morning, he'd seen her nonchalantly cascade into the ocean with naught but a smile. _Good humor_. He'd also seen her make an appearance at the spring Flower Dance, her brown hair festooned and a floral frock fluttering over her ample frame, stand on the outskirts with a soft smile after having been denied dances from Penny and Shane. 

A good humor and humility with plenty of perseverance. 

Perhaps he'd found his muse, after all. 


End file.
